.aesthetic talk
Agnes Obel
The Power and Poise
written Chidozie Obasi
Denmark-born, Berlin-hailed multi-hyphenate artist Agnes Obel has an ability to walk a fine line creating records that are both emotive and raw. But the beauty of her work is that her entrancing, soul-laden voice also has the prowess to leap from alt-pop to indie, connecting the dots with emotional power.
“As a songwriter, I think the stuff I aim towards journey across a conscious level, turning into a quite subconscious state,” she details, with no signs of peacocking braggadocio on display. “So when I’m writing,” she explains, “I can see a pattern that isn’t planned: It’s sort of happens with a natural frequency, which ignites the longing of the most intimate emotions that run through my music.”
The singer’s impressive depth shines through the polarity of her practice—fear, love and grief are all in the picture, a canvas she meticulously curates by writing, recording and producing on her own terms—but it’s always by the sheer soulfulness and powerful ingenuity of the music, and the way Obel sings even the darkest lyrics with rhythmic and melodic daring. “I really like how language, when working metaphorically, can make the mind jump to different places,” she says, adding how “sometimes people wonder if my lyrics are truly about anything, but it's just how my imagination works.” Pure, gloomy and impactful, her vocals sit in the passenger seat of our consciousness, wrapping us in a comforting blanket of melodic thrills and poignant lyricism.
Agnes Obel
seen by Christopher Puttins
blazer MARKE
dress AVENIR
total look WILLIAM FAN
“I think the stuff I aim towards when making music journey on an unconscious level, quite subconscious dare I say. So when writing, I can see a pattern, but not a planned one: It’s sort of what is happening on a naturally-driven flow, which makes longing the biggest emotion that runs through my music, and again it’s not done on purpose.”
Agnes Obel speaks with Chidozie Obasi
LE MILE Magazine TRANCE, Nr. 36
seen CHRISTOPHER PUTTINS
styled CHIDOZIE OBASI
hair + make up KATJA MAASSEN
coordination DENNIS CAPPABIANCA
photo assistant MORITZ HILKER
talent AGNES OBEL
special thanks to Chateau Royal Berlin
LE MILE shot Agnes Obel in the Apartment of Chateau Royal Berlin
Chidozie Obasi
I'd love to begin by taking a trip down memory lane. What's your earliest memory of music?
Agnes Obel
Well, you know what? I truly can't recall a particular memory or moment that made me fall in love with music, but I guess there’s a few. I don't even know what my first memory is [Laughs]. I started playing piano really early, and my piano teacher was a cellist, who also played the instrument. She quickly discovered that I loved a particular repertoire, and the one I was really into was that of Impressionist pianists. I was 10 at the time, and I bought a compact disc with a DVD that played Debussy’s Clair de Lune: I don’t exactly remember the version, but I still have the CD somewhere at home and every time I listen to it, it provides me this out-of-body musical experience. I somewhat realised this piece was the start of a journey.
Could you agree that growing up in Denmark has impacted your sound in a way?
Undoubtedly so. We are all a product of where we grew up, and I feel like my parents truly influenced me in many ways. Also, the media I was exposed to rendered my experience of music and the repertoire I liked as a kid. But I guess a lot of the music my parents played back in Denmark was a of a simple kind. If they played classical music, it was more instrumental, but when they played jazz, it was more of an upbeat kind. I feel like I got my candour and simplicity from them.
A large fraction of your repertoire sounds lyrically cathartic and poignant, with a somewhat mystic layer that punches right into the soul. What exactly are the emotions that you wish to express in your music?
I think the stuff I aim towards when making music journey on an unconscious level, quite subconscious dare I say. So when writing, I can see a pattern, but not a planned one: It’s sort of what is happening on a naturally-driven flow, which makes longing the biggest emotion that runs through my music, and again it’s not done on purpose.
Do you think that, aside from longing, loss is another component of your repertoire? Because there’s a blend of love and melancholy in Riverside, for example, which stretches to Familiar, and I trust there’s someone or something subconsciously hidden you’re referring to.
It’s fun to personify things that echo on in your mind, and I really like how language, when working metaphorically, can make the mind jump to different places. Here in Germany, there's a strong tradition for one-to-one lyrics. And that's when I made Familiar: I was working in a studio next to German pop songwriters, and I realised that everything I wrote was a metaphor. I'm completely aware it doesn't always work, and sometimes people wonder if my lyrics are truly about anything. But it's just how my imagination works.
Starting from the soft and honest lyricism of Philharmonics (your 2011 album), and then walking through the highways of the Aventine (your 2013 album), you round up with Myopia, creating an extraordinary sonic journey that blends emotion and execution. How do you keep feeding your sound?
I think all humans process the world through storytelling, and when stuff happens to us, we make stories about them in different ways. I’ve found my way of making stories. I try as hard as I can because I write on my own, and I develop avenues I have maybe traveled to or I try to avoid. So here's so many things I can do and try to repeat. In my studio, I have settings for each single song. On technical terms, I have a setting for various voices. So I can, of course, go down the same sound route if I want to. Sometimes I try, as I use literature a lot, to feed my mind with words and ideas by finding a way of expressing what I feel. For example, now I have kids I feel like being pregnant was really crazy. It's like you have this cycle of biology happening inside of you and you have no control. I thought it was very inspiring and also a little scary. And now this feeling I have from becoming a parent I believe is one that relates to universalism, where you kind of feel love for everything except yourself. I never really had anything like that before. It's a very strange thing, a weird phenomenon that happens to your brain. I tried to become familiar with that through literature.
What does the familiar mean to you? There’s so many ambiences in your songs, like the river, the curse, the Aventine. There’s also a wealth of emotional and physical places that are very familiar to you, which are recurrent in your pieces.
I feel like I can only sort of make music from a very calm place. There's an element of irritation. I think that in Familiar, there was some irritation, but it was a sort of fear. I was annoyed at that sort of this fearfulness of the transformation and of what that could be. In this case, it was love. It's like the idea of a love or a thing that could exist, but there's this fear of what the outside world would think.
“We are all a product of where we grew up, and I feel like my parents truly influenced me in many ways. Also, the media I was exposed to rendered my experience of music and the repertoire I liked as a kid. But I guess a lot of the music my parents played back in Denmark was of a simple kind. If they played classical music, it was more instrumental, but when they played jazz, it was more of an upbeat kind. I feel like I got my candour and simplicity from them.”
Agnes Obel speaks with Chidozie Obasi
LE MILE Magazine TRANCE, Nr. 36
total look BOBKOVA
And was there a particular moment that you found lost in your music and went through a state of myopia that made you refrain from writing?
Absolutely. When I made Myopia, that's the only time I really had a hard time making an album. And I can also tell now when I listen to it: My father died in 2014, and I'm not able to process it yet. However, I said to myself that I’d just keep going and continue whatever I'm doing. And then I think grief and sorrow really hit me when I made Myopia. I was making music alone sitting in a little box by myself, and when you’re zoned out in your loneliness it hits you very hard, particularly when it’s someone so close that you’ll never going to see again. Even though this loss made the whole writing process difficult, it was also inspiring: I was trying to work by pitching down my voice again, like I've done with Familiar, to represent this feeling of an undercurrent of voices, people, spirits and characters who are part of our lives, but fade at some point. You can feel their presence in a way, and I was trying to represent that sound-wise and lyrically, endlessly experimenting with both.
What have you learned about your music over the years?
Well, I've realised there's a power in being able to do it on your own. So, of course, you never do anything really alone, which is also an illusion, but this thing of working intuitively with the process and not splitting it too much up into parts is something I learned a lot. I think has been working for me and makes it interesting for me to go back to it as kind of my own technique of making music.
And then in terms of next projects, you said you're working on new music, right?
Yes, I’m working on a new album and it’s feeling incredibly cathartic, yet again. And I’ll tell you: there’s something about the brain that believes that you've finished the process, but there’s a punchy beat that keeps pulsating inside, so now I'm like [pauses momentarily…] well, maybe I shouldn't give away too much.
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discover online www.agnesobel.com
all images (c) Christopher Puttins